ENLARGESo much for all the complaining about commercial overload during the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics. Viewership of the opening night was down 35% from the record-setting audience for London’s opening ceremony in 2012, which attracted 40.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen. This year’s opening ceremony had 19% less ad time during the initial 4 ½ hours of coverage, according to Kantar Media. So why were so many viewers upset about the volume of ads if, in fact, there were fewer? During Friday night’s opening ceremony of the Games, viewers took to social media to voice their anti-advertising sentiments as many felt the broadcast was inundated with more ads than Olympians.

Source: Wall Street Journal August 08, 2016 20:18 UTC